This year our bookclub read The Legacy by Kirsten Tranter. Kirsten is a Sydney girl who spent quite a few years in New York and other parts of the US where she undertook a PhD in Renaissance Poetry.
At the Sydney Writers' Festival Fairlie and I saw Colm Toibin (my aide-memoir for the pronunciation is Column Toe-Bean) and Kirsten speak about how both of these books are a re-imagining of the story in this famous novel:
Which in turn is apparently a re-imagining of the story in this famous novel:
So what's a girl to do but consult the gurus at www.bookdepository.co.uk and have The Portrait of a Lady plus Middlemarch delivered to my door for a total combined cost of $10 with a plan to read them in their correct genealogical order.
Who knew books had relatives hidden in their past too?
5 comments:
Fascinating. I would have done the same thing! :-)
Good idea to indulge in a little 'retro-reading'. I loved the Blackwater Lightship - didn't everyone? - but Brooklyn left me cold, I'm afraid.
I've just finished Brooklyn and I really enjoyed it.
Can you just do The Cliff Notes for me on the relationship between the earlier two novels and Brooklyn, as I don't think I have the time to read them for myself. Thanks!
I absolutely loved Brooklyn, so I'm fascinated to read there's a literary link with the James and Middlemarch. Though I do reckon I've read those two and have wiped them from my memory, so, like Fairlie, I'm looking forward to reading your further writing on the subject.
Oooh, just saw someone was left cold by Brooklyn ... now I'll have to visit that blog and find out why ...
Quote - Kirsten is a Sydney girl who spent quite a few years in New York and other parts of the US where she undertook a PhD in Renaissance Poetry.
I dislike her already.
But I loved Brooklyn. I didn't make the Middlemarch connection even though I have read it. Time to revisit it I think!
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